A Fever Never to be Remedied
by lunethemoon
Summary: Esmeralda...that gypsy sorceress...she was hanged and I was a free man. And yet...the feelings seem to prevail. I see her, I feel her...and yet wasn't the spell broken?


There was no time. With the utmost speed I clambered into the Sanctuary, tearing the surplus from me, throwing my cincture to the floor. I sped faster to the cloister, attempting to hide my urgency as I felt the blood within my burn with such intensity that I knew the sorceress's spell was gaining hold of every facet of my very soul. Through the cloisters I ran to don my cloak, to mask myself from the common public. Truly, today, this moment…this would be the end of the madness. This would be the end to all my suffering. When the witch's body hangs limp from those gallows surely I would be a free man, a man free to again study the sciences and pursue what is of God. With her spell…her evil, _evil _spell gone, with my soul relinquished…I could return to being the priest I was meant to be. No woman should have ever come between me and my divine life and yet that witch…it matters not. The only thing worth focusing on was her demise.

Her eyes as I pleaded with her to leave me, the way her delicate jaw dropped and her beautiful eyes shot venom toward me…it was too much to bear. If anything it was proof that she was the sorceress that I suspected her to be.

I dashed through Notre Dame, making my way down staircase after staircase, running to go see her. I ran as fast as my limp, emotionally drained body would allow me. After what felt like hours of running (though truly it must have been no more than thirty minutes), I arrived at the bank of the Seine, East of the cathedral. I saw her, I witnessed the scantily clad witch climb the steps of the gallows, I watched as the rough noose around her supple dark neck, was tied to the top of the gallows. I watched them lift her, then her body squirm until it went limp. Dead. She was dead. The sorceress, the bitch, the gypsy wench…the one whom had ruined my life for these many months…she was dead.

A feeling of elation filled my being. She was gone, and I was free. I didn't bother with watching them take her down from that place, nor did I care to find her grave among the damned. Freedom was mine at last! O! the glorious feeling of self-control! O! I could scarcely begin to describe the pure euphoria I felt at the thought of the bitch, child of Satan, being dead at last. My plan had succeeded and no longer would she torment my life anymore.

I made my way back to Notre Dame, back to the refuge of Our Lady.

The first week or so, I studied again, consumed myself in the writings of Nicolas Flamel, the pursuit of alchemy had never seemed so enthralling. I felt peace, I felt pure and holy again. She never entered my thoughts, she never seemed of consequence to me anymore. I was in shock for that first week, and a glorious shock it was.

I woke up one night in a cold sweat. My body burned with passionate sensations and I felt urges that I thought would be gone forever. I dreamed of her body entwined with mine, her blessed bare breasts bared to me, her willingly embracing and caressing my body…I dreamed these damned dreams again. She surely…no…it was simply not possible. I ended the witch. I killed her. The witch was dead. If so…then why did these feelings prevail over me? Why did I still dream of her naked form? The spell was broken, was it not?!

That following week I was in a daze that hasn't lifted since. Every night I was plagued with the most impure dreams one could imagine. I remembered her that night in the dark cell deep below ground, and I remembered how I placed myself before her, willingly allowing her to damn my soul. Perhaps then I am damned? I know not. I would gaze into the mirror, seeing not only my own reflection, but in my mad crazed eyes I would see hers. She was there, in all my dreams, all my thoughts; every waking moment of my life seemed to be consumed with thoughts of her.

I had not only become stoic, punishing myself at least three times every day by flagellation, praying with earnest that these thoughts would be purged from me, praying that as I bled that the venom she left within me would bleed out. Alas! I even attempted twice to bleed myself out for the sake of removing her from my very core. It was impossible. She was trapped within the confines of my mind.

For weeks I would find myself attempting to become again lost in my studies, only to realize after hours that I had merely been staring at the empty stone wall. I would try to pray, and assume I was, until I noticed that not a single word had left my dry lips. I would stand and stare down at the square, begging God to let her live again and dance. Perchance if even her ghost were to stand there in all her demonic glory, perhaps then I would be satisfied.

I pitied myself so greatly that I spent time with my ward, Quasimodo. I sat in the tower and watch as he would joyfully leap from bell to bell, clanging them together in the hideous cacophony that he somehow found beautiful. Though the sound of the bells that indeed tolled before her final absolution (that she rejected), I prayed that the sound of the bells would return me the favor for giving them a ringer: make me deaf. I prayed that becoming deaf would remove the sound of her angelic, sweet, harmonious voice from my ears.

I found that even as I began to grow deaf that her strange Spanish ballads still echoed silently in the night.


End file.
